


Reality or Illusion

by Dragon_Writes



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Amy Rose Needs a Hug, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Illusions, Mental Health Issues, Miles "Tails" Prower Needs a Hug, Shadow the Hedgehog Needs A Hug, Sonic Forces, Sonic the Hedgehog Needs a Hug, They all need hugs, he was kept for six months and dammit I'm running with it, help him, knuckles the Echidna Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_Writes/pseuds/Dragon_Writes
Summary: A week or two or three, that's all, right?
Relationships: Amy Rose & Sonic the Hedgehog, Knuckles the Echidna & Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower & Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog & Sonic the Hedgehog
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	Reality or Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> Warning; this work deals with the fact Sonic was kept aboard the death egg for six months, and how he was just kinda deteriorating mentally during that time. If you think that may harm you to read, I'd advise clicking off. If I need to tag anything else please let me know!!
> 
> Now that the warning is out of the way, on with the angst

Steel grey walls loomed around him, meeting a steel grey ceiling too close to the steel grey ground. The small cot he sat on was the same grey steel, cold and uninviting and devoid of all life.

All the same. Not even a dent in the material, just smooth and shiny and dark.

He hated it.

Time meant nothing. It could have been an hour, it could have been an eternity, all he knew was the steel grey walls that he swore were closing in on him more and more with each passing moment, trapping him in this confined space with the same air for chaos knows how long.

He couldn’t run. _He couldn’t run._

The walls were too close, ceiling too low, cot too far out. He was trapped, barely able to move his feet, metal cuffs clinking around his wrists and ankles, sound bouncing off the walls and echoing in his mind over the silence that filled the room. 

Silence. Deafening silence. Enough to drive anyone mad. The only noise was the clink of the cuffs, the shuffle of his shoes, the screaming in his mind when the thoughts kept him up.

He tried to sleep. Tried to kill the time. He didn’t know how long had passed but he knew the thoughts and doubts spinning circles in his brain lost him _hours_ upon _hours_ of peace. 

Peace. That was something he hadn’t known for a while. Mind always screaming, screaming that he needed to move, screaming that he needed to get out, _screaming_ that he needed to make sure they were okay.

Screaming that he failed.

He shifted in the cot again. The metal clink bounced off the walls once more, cut through the silence like a knife except there hadn’t been silence, his mind was still yelling, had been yelling for days or weeks or months or years-

_Calm down._

A few days at most maybe. Yeah, that had to be right. A few days with nothing to do always felt like eternity to him, this wouldn’t be any different. He’d had some days to clean his wounds, pick himself up, and he’d be out again before he knew it.

Right?

No, no time for self doubt. It couldn’t have been that long, maybe a week or two at most, and everyone would find him soon. Amy would hug him, Knuckles and Shadow would call him an idiot, Tails would give him a hug and a lecture and it would all be _fine._

Tails. Chaos, Tails. The image replayed in his mind, couldn’t block it on time too slow _too slow._ The look of fear as he was struck down, his little brother’s scream as he lost consciousness, was he okay what happened-

Breathe. Too much. He was fine. He had to be fine, he was a smart kid, he could get himself home and would be scouring the globe with whatever new machine he’d come up with this time.

Yeah. His brother would get him out. He would see him again, talk about inventions and running and their adventures, watch tv until the early hours of the morning, stay in with hot chocolate on cold days.

His brother’s smile came to mind again, followed once again by that look of pure terror before he could block it, too slow again he was always _too slow-_

Too slow to save himself, too slow to protect his brother.

Images flashed through his mind before he could try to stop them and Chaos, he was tired by now. Every mistake, every failure, every person he had failed all came rushing back and his head was pounding. It felt like he was drowning and that was far too familiar, drowning in a tidal wave of guilt and misery and fear and he wasn’t sure if it was actually his fear anymore or if it was the fear of everyone he’d lost-

He couldn’t breathe again, it felt like claws were tearing at his throat, ice filling his body until he was shivering from the cold, he was underwater he had to be there was no other explanation where did the air go? He was panicking, drawing in gasping breaths but all his lungs filled with was water, choking him and tearing deep in his chest as he fought for control again through the tide. 

His eyes snapped open once more, he wasn’t even sure when they’d closed, met with the same steel grey walls as always featuring a hazy blue reflection that stared back at him with wide eyes.

Was it really a reflection though? Or an illusion, one of many tricks played, hazy figure coming out of the depths of the wall and crawling across the floor to grab at his immobile form because he _still couldn’t move,_ it had been so long since he’d been _able to move._ Clinks of metal and shuddering gasps for air echoed in the room, feeling like sharp winds whipping across his ears, a cacophony of noise in painful harmony with the screaming in his mind.

Hands gripped the cold steel grey cot, a reminder of reality, he was still there but it was fine because it had only been a week or two or three.

And he would be free soon. 

~ ~ ~

He was wrong.

A week or two or three was in reality a month or five or six, half a year spent isolated _half a year_ being too _useless_ to help-

Stop that train of thought. It’s fine.

Six months alone but they didn’t need to know, all they needed to see was him grin and bear it and continue fighting.

They needed a hero. 

_Their world needed a hero._

And the voice would taunt that he was nothing more than a failure, in the dead of night when he was staring at the plain white wall that was smudged and speckles and nothing like the steel grey in that cell, but was still too familiar all the same because the blankets kept him trapped. 

So he’d run. 

Across cities and fields and his ruined world, full of destruction and robots and fear, but hope was there. Hope that it can be fixed. Hope that they will be okay again.

He’d come home to find the world he loved was fighting a losing battle and all he could think was to joke about how quickly they let it get out of control, pass it off as if it wasn’t soul destroying to see the planet he swore to protect fight a losing war. 

It was Knuckles that told him, battle hardened violet eyes staring dead at him and making him shift uncomfortably, too similar to the tricks played, before he asked.

“How long do you think you were on the death egg?”

The tone sent a jolt of anxiety through his body, grave and worried and nothing like the echidna he knew, all of a sudden he was talking to a different person but it couldn’t have been long, right? It couldn’t have been more than a week or two or three.

So that’s what he said, with a grin and a shrug of the shoulder to mask the growing pit of anxiety in his stomach.

“...Sonic, you were gone for six months.”

Dead silence. For the first time in weeks- no, months, he could hear nothing, not even the voice in his head was yelling anymore, too shocked to reply and he couldn’t control how his face dropped.

He couldn’t control how much he started to shake when his friend hugged him, the first one he’d had in half a year.

Seeing his little brother again was an experience, the young fox walking into the room and stopping dead in his tracks when he noticed.

They stared for a full minute, for the first time unsure what to do, and the look in his brother’s eyes filled him with dread because he knew it too well from staring into his own reflection in those steel grey walls for six months.

_Reality or illusion?_

He tried a tentative wave and broke the spell, arms full of orange fur in a blur so quick it could rival him as this little brother clung to him, and all he could do was hug back and vow to never let go. 

The red echidna and pink hedgehog in the room kindly ignored the sniffles. 

Amy Rose had changed a lot over the half year he’d been gone, a glint in her eye that hadn’t been there before, hammer at the ready at every turn as she fought tooth and nail to keep their little army strong. 

His heart hurt to think he’d missed seeing his friend grow up, the voice yelling more that he should have been there before being silenced as she turned to him and said “I’m glad you’re back with us, Sonic,” eyes shining.

He couldn’t bring himself to pull away when she gave him a brief hug, just held her close for a moment of peace in this battle against his own mind in a bid to save the world.

“Glad to be back, Ames.”

He felt sick when he saw the black and red blur, heart dropping to the floor as he heard the words.

“Shadow was spotted in the city.”

What had happened?

His rival, his _friend,_ was working for the enemy all along. 

It had hurt at the beginning. To see Shadow stand alongside that masked jackal, to have someone who would spar with him and laugh and tease turn to him with dead eyes before striking.

Denial was his first response. That couldn’t be Shadow, it just couldn’t. His enemy turned rival turned tentative friend, turned to enemy once more?

He refused to believe it, but that little voice in his mind became loud when there was nothing else to block it out other than the clink of metal cuffs. 

It was hard to deny when the evidence was staring down at him, blood red eyes glazed over and for a fleeting moment all he could do was hope that his friend was being controlled, that this wasn’t of his own free will.

Somehow the thought of Shadow being used _again_ made him feel even more wretched than before.

When a second black and red blur joined the fight he was confused. When he was given the monotone response that the first was a fake, he could do nothing but stare and give a breathless laugh.

“Guess we found the real faker then, huh?”

The spark of hope that came into his friend’s eyes made him feel that little bit lighter as they ran alongside for the first time in an eternity.

Winning the war wasn’t easy. Dealing with the aftermath was arguably worse.

Decimated villages scattered around, metal scraps from defeated robots cutting through the brick walls of buildings people once called home, families running around trying to find their loved ones and praying that they were somewhere out there.

So many tears were shed, even by the toughest of fighters. Resistance members who would shake if something fell and the noise was too loud, Amy forever having her hammer at the ready as she cast wary glances down halls before moving, Knuckles ensuring no one went outside alone.

The battle may be over, but the road to recovery had just begun.

Tails stayed by his side as much as possible, he couldn’t bring himself to complain about the matter. Seeing a genuine smile on the kid’s face was a treasure, something he’d missed out on for six months and something he would cherish to witness because that little voice couldn’t help but play worst case scenarios that would leave his throat raw from screaming. 

In the dead of night he lay in bed, staring out the window as sleep refused to come. The stars glittered in the night sky and all he could think was that he was there, he was there for _half a year of his life,_ half a year he lost in a cell among the stars where no one could hear him scream. 

The memories replayed in these nights and sometimes he couldn’t tell if he was even awake or dreaming, could just see his friends’ horrified faces and blank eyes as they stared back at him and asked _why he let this happen._

He never had an answer. Too slow. 

He ended up on a hill at some point, staring down at the broken village that lay below as his quills flowed in the breeze, messy from his tossing and turning and sprinting. The same stars stared down at him, cold and lifeless as that cell had been and maybe the cell was a star, maybe he had _died_ and this really was all an _illusion._

_Stop thinking._

He couldn’t stop thinking, thoughts tumbling around once more as he stared up at space and pondered. 

“Why,” he’d ask, and yet the black and red figure never answered. Just stared with dead eyes.

“Is he okay?”

The lack of response haunted him.

A week or two or three alone with just his thoughts made room for plenty of conclusions and irrational beliefs. The fact he never got a reply to the one answer he needed to hear sent his mind running haywire.

His hands only stopped shaking when another clasped them in their own, a silent ‘it’s alright’ echoed into the night only for them to hear as blue and black and came together in a shaky embrace under the prison above, a galaxy that held horrors no one else could understand.

A week or two or three in a cell turned into a month or five or six in space, unable to help with the war that raged below in his absence. The screaming in his mind rarely quieted about this fact, and maybe it wouldn’t for a long time.

But for now he got to see his friends smile again for the first time in half a year, and he’d cherish that for forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Comments and kudos are very much appreciated and I hope you enjoyed


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